Known as much for their pink curly tails and pudgy snouts as their lowbrow choices of diet and habitat, pigs are prevalent in modern culture - from the Three Little Pigs to Miss Piggy to Babe.

Humans and pigs have lived alongside each other since early pigs were domesticated 9,000 years ago, and we are facing a future in which pigs and humans will be even more closely intertwined as a result of biomedical breakthroughs and rising global pork consumption. In Pig, Brett Mizelle provides a richly illustrated and compelling look at the long, complicated relationship between humans and these highly intelligent, sociable animals, focusing on the contradictions between our idealized view of pigs and the truth of the ways in which pigs have been selectively bred to fulfil human desire for their meat and to make hundreds of consumer products. This book explores human kinship with pigs in the worlds of art, literature and entertainment, but also the history of the development of modern industrial pork production. Pig shows how humans have shaped the pig; and how the pig has shaped us in its turn.